Lev 4 Chimaera

[AlienDNA]

I was just done replacing almost 150 trains from lev 3 to lev 4, when I noticed most trains didn't even get close to the speed they could travel when they had the lev 3 engine. The difference was as high as 100km/h on some lines.

So, I set out to do some serious speed-testing. I build a straight track from one end of the map to the other. Although it had a few humps, it was completely straight, and the humps gave almost no slowdown (only 5 km/h at the highest speeds). My funny conclusions:
- Even with 8 lev 4 engines, 100,000 hp, and no carts, the train doesn't make it past 570 km/h!
- With 100,000 hp it was EASILY outrun by a single pegasus engine. Although the lev 4 did reach a higher speed, it took it till halfway the map to catch up! It eventualy wins by about 30 squares, for 4 times the price and maintenence. Don't forget that the lev 4 is using 8 spaces by then, compared to 1 space for the lev 3. So no cartst allowed for lev 4.
- The lev 4 is ALWAYS outrun with ease by the lev 3, except when using VERY heavy loads, like 600 tonnes of cargo. Still, the lev 3 finishes only 10 squares behind after a full map-length run.

In practice this difference means: Use the lev 3, because with turns, frequent pulling up at stations and signals, the lev 4 is usually much, much slower. Because it is too heavy, and has far too little hp. The max speed is an illusion, and the rear engine kills the train. The 20,000 hp should be in one engine, otherwise it won't work.

So, my suggestion: Fix the lev, or remove it out of the game, to give us poor RSI-suffering sods a break, because all the replacing actually made me much less profit in the end! And why have such a worthless vehicle around anyway?

Same conclusion goes for many aircraft, by the way, many of which I NEVER EVER use, but make me scroll down a long, long list just to get the one or 2 planes I do use...

[Bouke]

Please rever also to this bug-report: click

I've also got to replace all those Lvl4 with Lvl3 again .